


After Dark

by bananalestrange



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, POV Regina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 16:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3296990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananalestrange/pseuds/bananalestrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina and Belle find themselves drawn to each other during the year in The Enchanted Forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Dark

She’s watching you again. You don’t hear her come into the room but there’s a shift in your senses and you know you’re no longer alone. She comes most nights now, slipping quietly into the castle’s vast library. Sometimes she reads but you can feel her gaze on you more often than not.

At first it was unpleasant, annoying even but you’re used to it now and it’s beginning to feel almost comforting. You’re both outcasts in this land you suppose, you’ve both lost everything that mattered and are left with nothing but the silence that hangs in these walls that feels too heavy to bear on some nights.

Snow and her prince are perfect hosts of course and go out of their way to make you feel welcome, but when night falls, they have enough love and hope in each other to forget they lost a daughter and fall into a peaceful sleep. You can’t forget what you’ve lost though; you don’t want to forget because this ache in your heart is all you have left.

“Don’t you have anywhere better to be?” you ask her one night early on.

“No” she whispers not looking up from her book, and she sounds so broken and you realize that she’s just as lost as you are, spending each day drifting through this awful nightmare that has no end in sight.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

“Why do you still dress like _her_?” she asks one night.

“She is me, dear.”

“But she’s not. I saw how you were with your son. You’ve changed.”

You have her up against the wall in seconds, hands around her neck. “Don’t you dare talk about Henry” you hiss but there’s no fear in her eyes, just defiance and pity and you _hate_ her in that moment because after all you’ve done to her ( _for what_? you sometimes wonder) she looks at you like she’s the one that should be sorry and you wonder how the hell you both ended up here.

\---------------------------------------------------------------

You watch her sometimes too and wonder what it is about her that brought out the best in one of the darkest souls to ever live. Why was she enough ( _why weren’t you enough_?) to drive away darkness wherever she went?

One night after too much wine at dinner you corner her in the shadows and kiss her hoping to find an answer, thinking foolishly that you can take some of her goodness for yourself, that if she could fix him she can fix you too.

Surprisingly she kisses back and for a brief moment you don’t feel as alone, but when you part, everything feels just as dark and hopeless as before.

“You stupid girl” you hiss at her, willing your anger to cover up the embarrassment you feel over such a moment of weakness before storming off.

It only occurs to you later that you’d seen disappointment in her eyes, like maybe she’d hoped to find salvation in you too.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You’re lying away one night when there’s a noise in your chambers, and she’s crawling in your bed whispering “I don’t want to be alone tonight” and she fits against you so perfectly you could almost cry. Almost.

You should have never ended up like this, not after everything you’ve done to her, you don’t even like each other, but she’s just as lost as you are here, an outcast with nothing left so you cling to each other for one night because you’re both so tired of having nothing to hold onto.

And she’s kissing you hungrily as you thrust your fingers inside her and she bites down hard on your breast so you claw at her back while her head is between your legs and there’s no tenderness in it but why would there be?

She’s different tonight, wild and determined and somehow you know that this is a side of her that Rumpelstiltskin never saw and you almost laugh for thinking that she was ever pure and good enough to save anyone because you may have worn your darkness on your sleeve but she’s hidden hers well, too deep for her to even know it’s there and you think that if Rumple had lived maybe they would have destroyed each other in the end.

You both finally succumb to exhaustion, lips bloody and bruised and she’s gone when you wake up.

\-----------------------------------------------------

She leaves shortly after with the spawn of the Dark One on some silly quest to bring him back. Her eyes meet yours as you leave and you give her the smallest of nods, the only acknowledgement of whatever existed between you when night fell.

You go to bed that night and finally allow sleep to come.


End file.
